ONCE the first flush had died, like any lover feeling suddenly trapped in the wrong relationship, I grew bored and picky with all around me.
What once on which I’d looked lovingly and indulgently, now I eyed coldly, picking at the faults, sighing as a long, silent night approached.
Let’s face it, France was really just another place to hang my hat as I allow nothing to own me; but one with just enough madness in the idea to appeal to a woman sadly fond of the grand gesture.
And, God, I’ve droned on about it off and on over these years, as I found myself constrained, restrained and growing mentally smaller in the boondocks.
When old friends asked me what the hell I’d been thinking of to bury myself far from all I enjoyed, I looked at them for help, for I no longer knew.
But then hadn’t I grown tired too of my city life? The malcontent that I’m realising I must always have been, I droned on there like Peggy Lee: “Is that all there is?”
It took a few years here; although always lurking, as I stared out at other fields rolling on and on, was the self-awareness that this wasn’t my place.
I’ve envied sometimes the ones I’ve met, the “expats” who float along in a cocoon of satisfaction, all their long planned hopes come true.
But I’ve known the others too, one half of a couple slowly closing down and inwards, trying hard not to tread on the partner’s dreams.
The widows, the widowers left adrift and frightened and, above all, alone for the first time in their lives.
There have been the broke, the desperate and the ones who closed their shutters for the last time and stole off into the night and back to all that was more familiar if not wanted.
I am used and happy to be alone but only, I know now, when at any time I can run…for a few hours, a night or for good.
But we don’t run so well as ageing closes many of the exits and we become almost timid in thoughts of the next adventure.
In the end it’s sometimes wearingly easy to slump back and let life happen instead of wringing out every last glorious, complicated second of it.
Shaken and knocked far off balance by this foul lung disease, which is all my own work, I had decided that my son was right.
I needed to be nearer to him and my granddaughter so that she would know me for as long as would be possible.
But somehow I haven’t been able to take the steps required – the estate agents seen, the hoped for price agreed, the telling of neighbours that it’s over and, like so many, I’ll be folding my tent and disappearing.
I know my French friends would be sorry and probably miss me, but soon I’d be just another fading memory – for these people, this land, are well used to goodbyes and caravans passing on.
And yet still I didn’t take the next steps so that come spring all would be set in motion. Instead I’ve thought long and hard about why. (Apart from hating being told what to do.) In essence it’s simple: I want to live as long and as well as I can and I believe that my best chance of that is in this wonderful health system regardless of what may be to come with Brexit.
It has come down to the recognition that all I once needed and craved is slipping anyway out of my life and it is time to work within my new constraints.
There will be no planes to run – ha – for; no excitement to run to; no more caged lion pacing. Acceptance is my new watchword.
It’s a word I’ve never understood for myself but it’s one I’m going to have to if I’m to turn my face away from the wall.
So I’m giving myself a re-thread. Another re-invention and this one will be the trickiest one of all, involving kicking myself up the backside and making yet another new life.
But the “new” life will be here, en La France Profonde, in a country which has given me much in terms of seeing and feeling; of, even as I resisted, lulling me at times with its ancient rhythms and sense of eternity.
And as Britain slides back into a morass of petty nastiness, I feel a thrilling sense of new vigour in France on which I want to report and comment.
I will use all my good days to go seek as far afield here as I can; accept the bad days; and turn my house once more into a place of fun and welcome.
I will search for new friends and acquaintances, grateful, always grateful, to the little coterie who surrounds me.
Sometimes one can look kindly again on old lovers when you understand it’s you, not them.
And this, so late, is what I’m finding.
Oh, I’m sure I’ll still whine and kick the walls I’m turning from and, God willing, you’ll read about it here.
Well, it seems here is where I’m staying then. (For now.)
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